The Los Angeles Times, hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy, has a leaked copy of a congressional report on the Obama administration’s failed Fast and Furious “gun walking” operation.

WASHINGTON — Republican congressional investigators have concluded that five senior ATF officials — from the special agent-in-charge of the Phoenix field office to the top man in the bureau’s Washington headquarters — are collectively responsible for the failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation that was “marred by missteps, poor judgments and inherently reckless strategy.”

The investigators, in a final report likely to be released later this week, also unearthed new evidence that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix initially sought to hide from the Mexican government the crucial information that two Fast and Furious firearms were recovered after the brother of a Mexican state attorney general was killed there.

According to a copy of the report obtained Monday by The Times, the investigators said their findings are “the best information available as of now” about the flawed gun operation that last month led to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. being found in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over subpoenaed documents.

The report also cites

”… the devastating failure of supervision and leadership” at the Department of Justice and an “unprecedented obstruction of the [congressional] investigation by the highest levels of the Justice Department including the attorney general himself.”

There’s no question that Fast and Furious is an unmitigated disaster and an on-going scandal for the Obama regime. More than 2500 handguns, rifles, and assault weapons were “walked” across the border to Mexico, and then lost. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and Mario Gonzalez, brother of Mexico state attorney general Patricia Gonzalez were both killed by drug cartel members using Fast and Furious weapons. But the truth is, dozens and perhaps hundreds of other of other murders may have been committed using the “lost” Fast and Furious weapons. The true count will likely never be known.

And like nearly every other issue of national importance, the Obama administration is trying to avoid any semblance of responsibility until after the November election. Politics first… leadership when we can get around to it, apparently.